


The Inherent Circularity of Pie

by zinjadu



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen, In the Fade, Pie, Silly, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 08:20:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Rufus Hawke has been stranded in the Fade, and now has to find a way to survive.Of course, this involves pie.Gift for Pobo from the /r/dragonage Holiday Art-Fic Gift Exchange.





	The Inherent Circularity of Pie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PoboboProbably](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoboboProbably/gifts).



Rufus slumped to what, for lack of a better term, might be considered the ground.  Behind him, the Nightmare began to dissolve, green light coruscating along its form, flaking away and dispersing into the Fade itself.  He didn’t look at it.  He knew how this went.  Big horrible evil thing dissolves into nothing, possibly leaving behind remnants of its previous victims. 

 

It might be too much to hope that, somehow, there was a pie in there for him.  He had found weirder things is less sensical places, but there was always a _chance_.

 

Rufus Hawke had lived on less.

 

Likely, he wouldn’t this time.

 

“Well,” he said aloud to himself, “that could have gone better.”  Like not being left _behind_.  Oh Maker, Varric was probably going to make him out to be some hero in all of this.  _Again._   All because he’s had one of his moments of, ugh, _distress_ , at just the wrong time.

 

But the distress had passed, and then the demon had been on him.  Or, well, he’d been killing the demon.  What a damned… well, nightmare.  It might be funny, if it weren’t for the inconvenient matter of his imminent death.  Or that he was _starving._   All that fighting had worked up a might hunger, and now that all the spider-fear-demons were _gone_ , he actually felt like eating.

 

Something.

 

 _Anything_.

 

But pie.  Oh Maker, pie would be perfect.  With a golden crust, still warm from the oven, flaky and tender, then the filling!  Sure, he liked all sorts of exotic fillings, experimental pies that pushed the very boundaries of what pie could be, but sometimes, at times like this, a man could really go for a classic standby.  Maybe a steak pie, or a chicken and cream with juuuuuuust cooked vegetables?  Yeah, yeah that would go down a treat right now.

 

He recalled some of those Inquisition people talking about the Fade, about how it was shaped by willpower.  Willpower and focus.  Though he wasn’t a mage, he certainly had focus, at least when it came to pie, and willpower?  Well, he had plenty of motivation to try, and nothing to lose.

 

Leaning back on a rock, or a bit of Fade that became rock, and closed his eyes.  He held the image in his mind, a pie just out of the oven, still steaming, the scent of meat and butter and lard all contained in a perfect gravy wafting right up his nose, just like the ones his mother used to make… and something twisted and warped.  Opening his eyes, Rufus saw it, _a pie_ , but as though it were on the other side of a window.  Carefully, he reached out, the strange Fade-window putting up some resistance to his hand, but he grit his teeth and pushed through. 

 

On the other side of the window, something strange happened.  He heard distant-sounding crash, a despairing wail of _Noooo!_ and… a boy laughing?  But that didn’t matter, because in his hand he had a handful of pie.  Kind of weird that he had to reach somewhere else for pie, but maybe that was the trick.  Fade-rifts were still a thing, and maybe he had simply opened one to get at some pie.  While under normal circumstances he wouldn’t stoop to stealing another’s pie (hording pie, outright refusing to tell people about pies he had in store, or simply not sharing his pie, there were all acceptable actions, but to _steal_ pie was just wrong and against all common decency!), these were not normal circumstances.  He was physically trapped in the Fade, and since the Nightmare hadn’t killed him, well, it seemed like he should at least try to survive.

 

Also, he could maybe, just maybe, perform the equivalent of summoning pie.

 

So it wasn’t all bad.

 

* * *

 

Traversing the Fade was… weird.

 

Rufus supposed that really should go without saying, but since he had no way of keeping track of time save how often he felt hungry or by his bowels acting up, and since neither of those things were, he could admit, regular, he had exactly zero sense of time.  Then there was the geography.  It wasn’t that the Fade _lacked_ geography.  Quite the opposite in fact.  It had a _lot_ of geography.  Too bloody much geography.  Geography _everywhere._   For instance, up the walls, over his head, in loop-de-loops, and (his personal favorite), _inside out_.

 

How that one worked, he didn’t know, didn’t want to know, and was happy with that.  He had been forced to resort to closing his eyes and shuffling along, tapping his weapon in front of him to test the path.  As long as the path went on, he kept going.  Occasionally he had opened his eyes to try to see if he was out of there, and once the path had been something that the human mind could process, he had run away from that mad area as fast as he could.

 

Of course, all that effort had built up his appetite.

 

He could try the pie-window trick again.  It had taken a bit of effort, and he had only managed a handful of pie that time.  Though, as with all things, practice improved results.  He could remember his first pie, a sad, barely browned thing, still a bit cool in the middle and far, far too salty.  Mother had encouraged him not to give up, however, and his next attempt had been a good deal better.  So, he would try it again.  But this time, he had an idea.

 

Deep breaths in and out, he closed his eyes, concentrating.  He could go for a fruit pie, maybe something with a shortbread crust, a bit of snap to it, ooooooooh, the kind where the put ground almonds in it, a bit of nutty flavor as counterpoint to a tart fruit… like a raspberry, yes.  The kind they served at dinner parties all the time.  Maybe a bit of a cliché, but it had been some time since he’d gone for something so perfectly simple.  The simple pies were the easiest to make, the hardest to perfect.  Grinning with excitement, he concentrated, remembering the tart taste of the raspberries and the crisp crust, and this time he felt the Fade-window open, a puff of air disturbed in its wake. 

 

Then he put his whole head through it.

 

For a moment there was a strange sense of doubling, like he was present in the same moment at the same exact place and time, but then he heard a woman cry out _Oh dear, I’m so sorry!_ and the pie splattered on his face.  Quickly, he pulled his head back through the widow before any pie could be left in the real world.  There, he had it!  A whole pie.  Sure, it was on his face, but he _had it_.  Flush with glorious victory, he laughed, lying down quickly to keep the pie from falling to the ground.  Then he ate it.

 

Even picked out some mostly intact bits from his beard, and after inspecting them for hair, ate those too.

 

Men lost in the Fade couldn’t afford to be picky about such things.

 

And hey, it was a shame to waste pie.

 

* * *

 

Then there were, of course, the demons.  Or spirits, really, he supposed.  They drifted about, most of them not really caring about him at all.  The demons just attacked him, which was something he could handle.  Something attacks him, he deals with it, and then he was on his less-than-merry way. 

 

But at least he had pie.

 

Or he could get pie.

 

No mage himself, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing, not that such things had ever stopped him before.  But it was still a little disconcerting sometimes, because sometimes he could swear he’d had that exact pie before.  Or he wondered where in the real world he was reaching through.  Some of the times he reached through were strange, like he could hear people, almost get a sense of events around the pie.

 

People and events he kind of knew?

 

Like one time he could have sworn he heard Varric laughing, that lusty chuckle.  Or Aveline’s sigh, always torn between amusement and exasperation. 

 

Or Isabela’s delighted, mirthful purr.

 

It was downright spooky.

 

He had tried to do without, to not summon pie, but he just got so hungry, and pie was what he could picture the easiest, could really focus on and summon willpower for.  Rufus _knew_ pie, knew it and loved it, and some of his best (and messiest) memories were about pie.  That kind of thing mattered here, as far as he could tell.  He had tried to summon food other than pie, but it hadn’t worked.  His feelings about other food just wouldn’t provide required oomph to get the job done.

 

So pie it was.

 

Pie and the ghosts of his life that somehow haunted him in the Fade, even though in theory it should be the other way around.  He should be the ghost, haunting them.

 

“Ha!  Wouldn’t that be hilarious?” he asked himself, snorting and laughing, picturing their faces if he really could jump out at them and say _boo!_   “Hahaha, if, if….”

 

He stopped, realizing hitting him like the Arishok.

 

“I AM HAUNTING THEM!”

 

The Fade-windows, they had to open somewhere, and they were somehow opening up around his friends, around pie-related things.  But… but sure his friends like pie.  Varric in particular could understand, and Sebastian when a fish-and-egg pie was involved.  Those were men who understood the value of a good pie.  But… but. 

 

“No, that… that would be crazy,” he muttered, pacing back and forth, booted feet scuffing along the path, which was grassy now, not wet and rocky.  “I mean, how would that be possible?  Unless…”

 

Summoning pie was almost a reflex now, and in no time he opened up a Fade-window.  Like always he had that strange sense of doubling, of being present twice over, but he ignored that.  Instead, Rufus paid close attention to what he saw going on around the pie.

 

_"She's right," Anders said, stepping forward. "I had to gather ingredients from the Gallows!"_

_"Anders, no!" Aveline shouted, her fears coming true. "The tablecloth!"_

_The white linen adorning the table had indeed snagged on one of the rings in Anders' coat, and by_ _the time he'd made it halfway across the room to Rufus, the pie was already on its way to the_ _ground. Thinking quickly, Merrill lurched forward, attempting to catch the pie with her staff._ _Rather than break its fall, however, she launched it into the air on a collision course with Rufus'_ _face. The familiar, scratchy burning spread over his eyes, nose, and cheek yet again as he fell_ _backwards with a dramatic yelp._

 

_"Maker damn it, I was calling your bluff!" he screamed, writhing in pain and clutching his chest._ _"I didn't think you'd actually try to off me!"_

 

The pie was on his face, and his face, both of his faces, and Rufus pulled back through the Fade-window, pie on his face, the pie Anders had made for his birthday.  It had been a good pie, it still _was_ a good pie, a fantastic, traditional mincemeat pie, a pie that was _both_ meaty and fruity, with great spices and a flaky, golden crust.  It was all that a pie could be, and it had been the pie he had been thinking of.  That had to be how he was connecting to the real world, through the memories of the pies he had already eaten.

 

“So that means… oh Maker, I don’t know what that means!” Rufus cried, kicking at something that might be a tree, or a spirit.  Who knew here? 

 

What he did know was he was connecting to his own life through pie, somehow sustaining himself in pie he had already eaten, and was reliving almost every moment where there had been a pie-mishap.  Or… what if… what if he had already done this?  Since here, in the Fade, time didn’t matter, only emotion and connection, then… then… what if…

 

No.

 

No that was impossible.

 

It couldn’t be.

 

But… what if…  What if he had been responsible for his own pie-mishaps _all this time_?!  Every instance of pie hitting him in the face, every damned time, from the first time when he had made his first really fantastic pie, that chicken pie!  That chicken pie he had first summoned in this place!  When Carver had laughed at him after he had slipped up bringing the pie to the dinner table and it had fallen on his face?!  Then that raspberry pie that had hit him, it had been for a dinner party, the time he and Isabela had rescued that poor caterer.  On and on, pie-tragedy after pie-tragedy.

 

What his Fade-windows _now_ were responsible for all that pie-loss _then_?

 

Rufus sat down, head in his hands, mentally reviewing all the times he had worn pie rather than properly eaten it.  All that frustration, all that pie, lost to him… but not entirely!  With a giddy, almost mad exultation, he lifted his head and grinned.  He had the pie _now_ , though.

 

It all came around, he supposed.  It all came around.

**Author's Note:**

> So yes, Rufus Hawke turns out to be his own pie demon. Why not?
> 
> Happy holidays, Pobo, I hope you have a good one, whatever you celebrate, and that you enjoyed this theory as to Rufus's many, many pie-mishaps. :)


End file.
